Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh, I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. As Bartz reminds us, “[t]o have physical health but no salvation is the most fatal and terminal disease of all.

Having “invisible” disabilities makes life more challenging because people assume you are well and don’t understand why you can’t do things or go places. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Brooke’s passion is spurring on the women God leads to her sphere of influence, inspiring their hearts to keep their strength and hope at the foot of the cross, to trust in the Great Shepherd to one day heal them completely in glory, even though for now they are suffering on earth. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12 it was the Lord that afflicted His servant with this thorn in the flesh, to remind him of his fallenness, his weakness, and his utter dependence upon divine mercy.Unfortunately in today’s world many people have bought into ideals like the prosperity gospel because of how attractive it sounds, but there is an entire group of people fully ignored and/or unjustly judged. Each chapter employs the adjective “chronic” affixed to a Christian concept, upending the negative connotation of the word and demonstrating how Christ’s character and example show us how to live no matter the state of our physical condition. God is the ultimate healer and though the Chronic Illness may never go away, he can lead us to prayer for dealing with the pain and one day he will heal us in glory.

In Chronic Love, Brooke Bartz reveals a deeply raw and descriptive account of life with a chronic and debilitating illness, and she shares with readers how comfort and strength can be found through the Truth in God's Word. That said, there were numerous things that garnered my attention such as the application of the word “chronic” to describe God’s love for people. Yet disease was not always her close companion; in the years before her diagnosis, she grew up playing sports and earned a full scholarship to play volleyball at the University of Mary Hardin–Baylor. I found this book to be highly encouraging by putting forth an eternal perspective without ignoring the daily battles people face with chronic illness. There is so much more about Christ suffering in us, feeling our infirmities, being under the yoke and bearing the burden of our afflictions and our anxieties.By reading "Chronic Love" I not only received an education of how to preach to myself in the midst of suffering, but was also taught what it looks like to not waste an education, or waste my suffering. In stark contrast to one of the reviewers who said, "to think God “ordained” such makes me feel angry and rebellious against such a God," there is this quote by Charles Spurgeon who spent his whole life battling severe depression and gout. Unfortunately, there was a basic, or maybe not so basic, paradigm shared in the first chapter of the book that I believe many will question. This year I have endeavored to stop waiting for my conditions to improve and really persist in glorifying God more than ever in spite of the pain and symptoms, so this book was a very timely read.